Return of the BPA: Kyle Hamilton

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… the Baltimore Ravens used to scoop up the very best prospects in the Draft picking outside the top 10. As other teams made mistakes, addressing need first and foremost, forsaking the finest talents in the first round, formidable players fell into the Ravens’ lap.

From the outside looking in, you could speculate that the Ravens have moved away from this approach in recent years. The Best Player Available mantra being thrown aside somewhat, to address pressing needs and finally resolve the Ravens biggest question mark of the Ozzie Newsome-BPA era: Wide Receiver.

Under Eric DeCosta; Marquise Brown, Patrick Queen, Rashod Bateman (arguably), and Odafe Oweh all represented first round swings at pitches intended to strengthen perceived weaker areas of the team. Other clues suggested that DeCosta was happy to buck long-held trends – drafting only pass-rushers with serious college sack production was seemingly a close-to hard rule under the previous regime, that he ignored with the Oweh selection.

Though I started this piece with a reference to Star Wars and Return of the Jedi, in truth, it’s Mark Morrison’s “Return of the Mack” that has been playing over in my head while I write it. Just like in the song, the BPA approach said “you know that I’ll be back”, and it was.

It likely never went away. There are certainly examples of the Ravens selecting players outside of the first round that could be considered the best player available and not at a position of need under Eric DeCosta. And I suspect the Brown, Queen, Bateman and Oweh picks may have had something to do with the way the Ravens set their Draft board and how the Draft fell those years. Perhaps their perceived supreme talent at other positions did not fall as much as they thought, and they were able to prioritize need from a cluster of similarly graded players.

In truth, it’s the invoking of my namesake’s selection that really makes you stop and take notice of Kyle Hamilton this year. Of course nowadays, selecting a Left Tackle with the first pick of franchise history is a sensible decision, even if you seem set at the position, given how much of a cornerstone that player can be. That was true back in 1996 too, as the Baltimore Ravens approached their first ever Player Selection Meeting as a franchise. But the Ravens had a good veteran Left Tackle in Tony Jones and many other pressing needs to address.

That didn’t stop Ozzie Newsome from selecting Jonathan Ogden at 4th overall and the rest, as they say, is history.

Let’s be clear, I am not comparing Kyle Hamilton to a Hall of Famer – my spectacles are a deep shade of purple but they’re not that deep. Hamilton’s selection does though, given a loaded Safety room, evoke memories of the Ogden selection and is certainly why the BPA-force is so strong in this one.

In reality, new Defensive Coordinator Mike Macdonald will get very creative with the deployment of his veritable assortment of Defensive Backs. And though the Ravens have explored trade negotiations on Chuck Clark, there will be space for everyone to contribute, albeit likely not in the same capacity as before.

The fact that the Ravens have even entertained trade talks about Clark – a franchise cornerstone, a leader in the locker room, a cerebral captain of the defense – tells you all you need to know about Hamilton’s talent.

That the Ravens would take Hamilton, knowing it may lead to the discarding of a player like Chuck Clark, is unsurprising given what Hamilton can do on the football field and could do alongside big-time free agent addition, Marcus Williams.

Williams and Hamilton complement each other perfectly. And I hate to reduce it to this kind of simple dichotomy as they are both complex and brilliant football players, BUT, one is elite going forwards and one is elite going backwards.

I talked about Marcus Williams on Cole Jackson’s Two Guys Watching Football Channel after the signing. For context to the statement I just made: Williams has elite movement skills and instincts, with outstanding ball skills and gets his hands on most passes when challenged by deeper routes transitioning to the sideline and backwards to post, corner and go routes.

This though, is my review of the Kyle Hamilton selection, so we really should get to what I think of the former Notre Dame standout. First things first, you can check the strength of purple-tinted spectacles by comparing my pre-Draft report with this piece.

Hamilton, though, was a player I felt very good about the accuracy of my evaluation of, pre-Draft, and having re-watched all of his available game film for this piece, I still feel very good about. So there shouldn’t be too much difference here.

The first thing you notice about Hamilton on film, and I’m sure the first thing Ravens fans will notice about him, is his size. At over 6’4”, he is in the 100th percentile for height amongst Defensive Backs. This is a huge advantage for a Safety that does his best work, as he does, when on the attack.

But, when evaluating players, you often naturally look at this height in a Defensive Back, especially when it stands out as much as it does with Hamilton, and turn your attention immediately to his movement skills. Longer guys are usually not as fluid as more compact players. So, it’s here that we find his big deficiency. I don’t like starting here but I think it’s important to get this out there early, because the rest of this piece is going to be a love letter.

The reason I didn’t have him as a top 3-5 player in this class, just outside in the end, is because of a slight weakness in his transition mechanics which leads to challenges covering players where he has to turn more than 90 degrees and go backwards, mostly when he has to flip his hips and run on the diagonal from the center-field position. You can complete balls on him in this scenario with good Quarterbacks who play with good eye discipline, combining with the faster WRs he saw in college, who play with a consistent route stem and good processing.

Hopefully you can see that those are some specific circumstances under which he can be beaten i.e. it’s tough to complete balls on him, except in these very specific conditions. It’s also important to note that his outstanding processing allows him to compete in those situations, but he will see them at the next level, especially playing in a multiple defense like the Ravens run.

There are many ways in which he can be prevented from being put in this position regularly, through the way he is deployed. As a split-safety or utilized as an attacking weapon you can minimize the times he has to flip his hips, turn and engage top speed. The presence of Marcus Williams as a rangy, true center-fielder/safety-blanket also helps in this regard.

That leads to me Hamilton’s strengths, and there are many.

The first that has to be highlighted is his processing. He reads the game at an elite level, reading both the Quarterback and route progressions with his peripheral vision. He is off his spot absurdly quickly, showing how hard he works on the tape and how well he understands what offenses are trying to do. If you want to see it for yourself, check out pretty much any of his college interceptions, watch them frame by frame, and watch him get off his spot before the QB shows any signs of even considering a throw.

He's also not a gambler, he’s a playmaker within the structure of the defense. Some of the very best Safeties in NFL history had the ability to freelance and find a way to make their mark on the game, but they picked their spots and more often than not, wouldn’t hurt the team by their actions. Hamilton has that kind of ceiling with his football intelligence.

Something that helps him break on the ball quickly, especially anything thrown in front of him or to his side (not behind, as already mentioned) is his explosion. His drive mechanics, which are less about hip mobility than transition mechanics, are very good. There is little wasted movement when he hits his back foot and drives to the football. This technique is supplemented by measurably outstanding explosive ability.

In Man Coverage he will be a weapon to use on even the most prolific Tight Ends in the league, he will be able to compete with length, toughness and play strength at the break-point. He doesn’t look out of place when covering quicker Wide Receivers in short areas, especially in squat coverage when he can keep it all in front of him.

His ball skills when the ball gets to his target are excellent. He tracks the ball in the air proficiently, he has outstanding timing when breaking the ball up and uses his length and height well to compete against all types of receiver.

Against the run, like Thanos, he is inevitable. His smarts, his quickness and his physicality mean, it seems like it’s only a matter of time before you see him knifing through second level blockers to the ball-carrier. When flowing to the ball he takes outstanding entry angles and he’s a sound tackler when he gets there. His toughness shows up time and again on film, put simply, he plays the run like a Raven.

He has prodigious size, he’s explosive, he has solid speed for a Safety, he’s an elite processor, he’s tough and he’s a playmaker. He is a perfect fit with the Ravens in terms of his individual style of play but also how he chimes with the Ravens collective way of playing defense. He is one of those position-less marvels that they love.

The Bengals defense last year was one that was coordinated masterfully by Lou Anarumo, offensive coaches found it very hard to get in, and stay in a rhythm against them for a full game. Some of that was Anarumo’s play-calling, but he also had the players at his disposal on the back end, especially at the Safety position, to disguise his coverage and keep QB’s guessing.

It’s not difficult to imagine Mike Macdonald doing the same with this Defensive Back group, Kyle Hamilton being the versatile jewel in the crown. Next year, when the Ravens meet the Bengals, it will be Joe Burrow who has to account for Marcus Peters… Marcus Williams… Kyle Hamilton… Marlon Humph…BAM – Odafe Oweh hits him from behind. Marcus Williams was already a big force multiplier upgrade for this defense – adding Kyle Hamilton to the mix too was a BPA masterstroke.